The Lady Vanishes

I'm writing this review because I really enjoyed this remake of "The Lady Vanishes" When I looked it up on IMB it had a low rating and not very kind reviews,after watching it i wanted to let others know Its very good. British TV at its best with an excellent performance from Tuppence Middleton as the socialite Ms Carr and the wonderful Tom Hughes. The Vicar and his wife were also very convincing and very real performers. This is my favorite period in history, just before the war, the clothes are wonderful with the young people rich and glamorous seemingly having it all with there frivolous fun filled holiday in Italy, with the other hotel members frowning on there loose morals, Ms Carr the rudest of them. This is all very well set up as the train journey begins the story twists and turns with everyone playing there part so well as the suspense is building. Its a top notch remake of a great story with the best ending! Very well done by all the actors involved.

I was almost put off watching this movie by some of the reviews here. I'm very glad I persevered.

This is one of the most nervy, energetic mystery-thrillers I have ever had the pleasure to watch. It has a fantastic cast, all of whom are at the top of their game here, and a plot which kept me on the edge of my seat until the last minute.

I think that a lot of the negative reviews here have come from Hitchcock fans who were expecting a remastering of the original. Having never seen it, I can't comment. It may be even better. Nevertheless, this stands up very well as a separate entity. Don't be put off.

The reason it's not 10 stars is that it does have a slightly slow start. It requires some small perseverance. Still, one of the best movies I've seen this year. I'm very glad I caught it.

By calling this PBS program "The Lady Vanishes," one believes he or she will see a remake of the Hitchcock film of the same name.

However, that's not the case. Alfred Hitchcock was notorious for purchasing a book to make a film and then using a section or even a paragraph from it and building the story around it.

Hitchcock's source material was a novel called "The Wheel Spins" by Ethel Linna White, and this is an adaptation of that, which only bears a passing resemblance to "The Lady Vanishes." An elderly British woman who befriends a younger woman seems to disappear from a train, but no one can remember seeing her in the first place.

The young woman in this case has the same name as the early film, Iris Carr, and here she's played by Tuppence Middleton. She's a playgirl, with plenty of money and drunken friends, and they've all made a spectacle of themselves at the hotel where they stayed in Croatia. Iris becomes ill, supposedly of sunstroke, and nearly misses her train.

When she boards the train, she finds that not many people speak English, and it seems like an awful lot of the people from the hotel are on it. Still not feeling well, she is befriended by a Miss Froy who takes tea with her. Iris falls asleep, and when she wakes up, Miss Froy is gone. She seems to have disappeared off of a moving train. A handsome young man, Max Hare (Tom Hughes) befriends her and tries to help. But it starts to seem to him and to others that Ms. Carr is off her nut.

The film started slowly, and for this, I blame the leading woman and the direction she received. She comes off as extremely unpleasant and bratty, and by the time she's plowed into the twelfth person without saying 'excuse me,' your interest is just about lost. Once other characters enter into the story, it picks up.

It was great to see MI-5's Keeley Hawes, almost unrecognizable in a black wig, as a woman having a liaison with, of all people, Julian Rhind-Tutt playing a proper Englishman. In his younger days, with his unusual face he always played wild men, sporting long red hair and using his comic timing to perfection. Here, his hair is short and he is quite distinguished as a somewhat frosty Englishman.

I was a little disappointed. I wanted it to be better.

I find myself to be utterly annoyed with reviewers who compare this excellent BBC adaptation with Alfred Hitchcock's 1938 masterpiece. This version is a faithful adaptation of Ethel Lena White's psychological mystery novel, The Wheel Spins; Hitchcock used only the premise of the novel and added his own brilliant (often comedic) touches to make the story cinematically appealing for contemporary movie audiences. This approach is similar to what Hitchcock did in many of his other adaptations, including Rebecca and Suspicion, in which he changed the ending of the story or altered the presentation due to such considerations as audiences unwilling to accept stars like Laurence Olivier and Cary Grant being guilty of murder.

As for this 2013 version of The Lady Vanishes, directed by Diarmuid Lawrence, it is a straight drama, like the original novel. Although many contemporary readers may have overlooked the novel, I highly recommend it, as I do this adaptation.

THE LADY VANISHES is the third adaptation of an old-time mystery novel. It was first made - to great success - by Hitchcock in the 1930s, and then a remake with Cybil Shepherd and Elliott Gould followed in the 1970s. This new version is a TV movie made by the BBC, and - somewhat inevitably - it's the weakest version yet.

The problem with this adaptation is a mixture of both the script and the budget. It's obviously made to cash in on the success of DOWNTON ABBEY, but there's far too much of the socialising and not enough of the thriller. The first half hour is excruciatingly slow and even once the action shifts to the train it doesn't get much better. The scenes on the train feel claustrophobic and not in a good way; Hitch's version ended with a rousing action scene, but the drawn-out mystery here just fizzles out with a lack of inspiration and budget constraints.

The cast is no better. Tuppence Middleton (TORMENTED) is the detestable heroine, and required to undergo a character arc from snobby and rude to warm and caring, but Middleton is too inexperienced to convince in the part. The likes of Keeley Hawes and Julian Rhind-Tutt are merely window dressing, their performances weak imitations of their roles in UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS and THE HOUR respectively. As for Gemma Jones and Stephanie Cole, the actresses are game but their comedy value is virtually nil. Jesper Christensen must be thinking that his days of starring in James Bond movies are long in the past with this pitiful, by-the-numbers TV drama.